Gets a lot easier when you're making art for artists who inspire you. Certified badasses, Ideateam, commissioned me for the second time, a moment I both relished and feared. Feared because the last poster I drew for them is one of my favorite pieces of my own, poster work or otherwise, so I set the bar high. It didn't happen to matter though, I'm inspired by these guy's energy, they certainly get mine, and we quickly landed on this idea (while churning out a few potential ideas for the future, I might add).
In May of 2015 I started using a digital drawing tablet - a small Wacom Bamboo - and switched from Photoshop to Illustrator, an application I had never used before. Prior to that I had a three part process, ripped from comic book artists; pencils, inks, and then the inks were scanned in and colored in Photoshop. Stepping back and looking at this piece now I realize I've gotta have a lot of respect for the staff at Adobe for creating such versatile products for artists to use practically - pick up, learn quickly, and create with. And I feel proud for the progress 2015 brought. From this point on I can say I feel confident with Illustrator, and even though there's always plenty to learn, it feels great to have such a tool at my disposal.
Here, I suppose we have my version of a UFO landing, on a '2016' shaped Arizona desert rock formation. That is how we all imagine it though, right? Some few people out in the middle of desert-nowhere, chillin', when all of sudden it's time for humankind to meet whatever-they-want-us-to-call-them. Originally mocked up as a sunset, the band wisely opted to go with 'a dusk scene and fractal imagery in the sky'. The color palette was taken from issue 2, page 11, of a comic book called East of West. They were printed on 80lb coated cover stock by ShortRunPosters.com.
Joe & Kyle of Ideateam and Brannum of Aquifer holding a framed copy.
Thanks for the visit.
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